


The Sun + Stars

by StrangerThanDiction



Category: Mamamoo
Genre: Alternate Universe - Bands, Alternate Universe - College/University, Band Fic, Battle of the Bands, F/F, Song Lyrics and Poetry, bassplayer!hyejin, drummer!wheein, guitarist!yongsun, keyboardist!moonbyul
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-18
Updated: 2019-05-26
Packaged: 2020-03-06 10:28:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,107
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18849205
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StrangerThanDiction/pseuds/StrangerThanDiction
Summary: Byul decides to form a band to win a competition and makes unexpected friends along the way.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> No, *you're* writing three full length fics at once.

Kim Yongsun has two friends she could count on: her acoustic guitar and the upper-left corner of the campus green where she picks her guitar’s strings for three hours a day.

  She steps across the grass with its brown leather strap across her chest, combat boots sinking into the muddy ground from that morning’s rainfall. Dreary days were best. The hurried movements of students, heads tucked into their chests, going to and from classes set in contrast with the slow-strummed melodies of a nice folk tune.

  It’s writing weather. Tucked into the crook of her arm is her journal filled with the poetry and songs that only Mother Nature would truly hear. And her suitemates whose audible groans resound through the thin walls at night.

  Yongsun sits next to the large oak tree, ignoring the mud that splatters the cuffs of her jeans, and balances on one of its exposed roots. She swings her guitar over her shoulder and settles it into her lap like a child, then places the journal onto her knees as she settles into her familiar crook in the tree. She flips to the page bookmarked by her pen.

  “Alright.” She hums, digging into her pocket and placing the guitar pick she finds between her teeth. “Lesh shee here.”

  She’d been working on a song yesterday about the fish in the cafeteria from lunch, hastily written chords above the lyrics.

 

(Verse 1)

_Ever so rarely is the Café relished_

_But dining plans force my hand_

_Today there was barbeque sauce on my baked fish_

_I think my appetite is finished_

(Pre-chorus)

_I consider between starvation and barbeque fish_

_Why the fuck is sweet honey barbeque sauce on my fish?_

 

(Chorus)

_I hate the Café_

_Because it makes me pay_

_1500 dollars every term_

_For motherfucking barbeque fish_

 

  Yongsun stares at the page for a moment longer only to turn to a clean one. The rage-fueled song did feel incredibly good at the time but, in hindsight, turned out pretty awful.

  An idea for an up-tempo song for her electric guitar had been on her mind all day, but only the toe-tapping melody and not the song’s subject. It wasn’t about love or nature or the cafeteria’s lunch meats. She wants something astronomical this time – beyond human limits. Currently its lyrics are proving to be beyond her limits.

 

(Verse 1)

_When I close my eyes_

_I find myself amongst the stars._

_And silently I fly past Earth’s sky_

_And right along to Mars._

_Spinning alongside the rings of Jupiter._

_Lonely like Pluto._

_Saturn watching from afar_

_With asteroids of molded Play-Do._

  Yongsun drops her pencil onto the page and chews on her guitar pick in thought. The lyrics feel wrong. Too many planet references?

  She slips the pick from her teeth and straightens, loosely wrapping her left hand around the guitar’s neck. Kicking her foot off the tree in a 2/4 rhythm, she hums quietly to herself as she tests out a few different chords.

  Yongsun measures the passage of time through the dulling of her pencil’s lead and from the pitiful nub currently remaining, it’s been about an hour and a half. Also, the sun has begun to show its face between the gaps in the clouds to her dismay. The humidity alone is already enough to cause her hair to stick to the back of her neck without the sun coming out and making it worse.

  A shadow slides over her and the pages of her notebook and she’s pleased to think a cloud has blotted out the sun for her until she hears the shuffling of feet and an uncertain female voice saying, “Um, hey.”

  Yongsun glances up at her visitor from beneath her eyelashes. The first thing she notices is the woman’s smile which grew as she looked up, as if one side of her mouth is chasing the other up her face.

  “You know I see you here every day, in this exact spot, with that same-old tired hairstyle.”

  Yongsun’s lips tighten, already annoyed by this new face and ready to explain why the half-up, half-down style was the fashionable and logical choice for guitar playing. “Actually, my hair –”

  “Oh geez,” she raises her hands as if warding off evil, “your hair’s nice. Really did not want an explanation.” Yongsun narrows her eyes. “So, my name’s Byul and I have a proposition for you.”

  It’s drugs. It is always drugs. Apparently, something about her dark attire and makeup makes her appear willing to sell marijuana.

  “I am not a drug dealer.” Yongsun says with finality, looking back down at her journal.  

  “Wow! Okay.” Byul’s eyes widen in surprise. “Not where I was going but good to know…I guess.”

  “Alright,” Yongsun says barely hiding her annoyance at the interruption. She closes her journal giving the newcomer her attention, “What can I help you with?”

  Byul widens her stance, jabs two finger guns in her direction, and asks, “Have you ever wanted to be in a band?”

  “No.”

  Her fingers wilt like flowers. “Oh. You sure? Because I thought,” she gestures towards Yongsun, “you just seemed like you would.”

  “I do this,” she gestures down at herself, “for fun. Why do you want to start a band anyway?”

  “Call it a dream.” Byul says in a whimsical manner. “Call it a calling.” Yongsun tilts her head up at the woman curiously. “Call it fifty thousand dollars and a record deal split among four people.”

  “Oh. Now I see.”

  Yongsun figures she’s talking about the Battle of Bands tournament coming up this summer. The posters have been posted on every streetlamp and the ads have been all over her social media feeds. Hundreds of bands from across the country will be trying their luck to win the final grand prize in New York City.

  “You want to gather a ragtag group of nobodies to somehow pull together and impossibly win a national competition against people way more qualified than you?” Yongsun asks. “Is that it?”

  Byul doesn’t look the slightest bit deterred as she sticks up her index finger. “First of all, no one said my hypothetical band isn’t qualified so oof. Two,” she lifts another finger, “we have until December before we need to fully commit to the conference competition so calm your tits talking about the national level already, lady.”

  “‘Calm my tits’?” Yongsun mutters incredulously under her breath.

  “If the few seconds of music I hear from you every day is any indication of your talent, I’d say our band is already well off.”

  Byul’s face is completely serious, though her eyes twinkle in amusement. Yongsun fights a flush creeping up her cheeks. “What a charmer.” The woman shrugs but looks proud with herself. “And what exactly do you play?”

  “What do you think I play?” She spreads her arms wide and does a little turn.

  Yongsun appraises Byul’s snapback worn backwards and low over dark brown hair and her loose shirt that’s tucked into loose jeans belted tightly at the waist. “Drums?”

  “Wow.” She mutters dryly and drops her arms. “Somehow feeling very judged right now.”

  “You know, I was hovering between ‘drums’ and ‘women’.”

  “Piano.” Byul says on a laugh that creases her nose. “But I’m touched.”

  Piano. No, Yongsun definitely wasn’t expecting that answer. _She has the fingers for it_ , she admits to herself as she notices the long, slender appendages curling slightly at Byul’s sides. Her forearms are also toned in the areas of an experienced pianist.

  “Child prodigy I’m guessing? Can play Mozart one-handed?”

  “True.” She hooks her thumbs into her belt loops. “I can play a mean _Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star_. All twelve variations.”

  Yongsun holds back a smile. “Impressive.”

  “Thank you. So anyway, I have a nice prospect for the drummer, and I’ve got a bassist, but you’re the only person I know who can sing and play a guitar-” Yongsun opens her mouth to contend with the likelihood of that statement, “- _and_ writes their own stuff.”

  “Okay?”

  “Plus, you’re like really pretty.” She smiles at her confidently.

  Yongsun squints up into the woman’s face. “So, I was right about the women.”

  “Look, you’d make a good frontwoman, okay.” Byul digs her phone out of her back pocket and unlocks it. “I need to go meet with my bassist now, so how about I get your number and ask you about it in a couple of days?”

  “All this for my number?” The corner of her lips twitch as she accepts the phone. “You could’ve just asked.”

  She finds herself enjoying the frequent smiles Byul gives her, particularly the wide, sloping grin she’s wearing now. She has the face of someone Yongsun might have seen around a few times given the smaller campus size but had never interacted or had class with her.

  “If I’d know you were so willing I would’ve the moment I first saw you.”

  “Flirting with your potential member already,” Yongsun hands back the phone with her number inside, “that’s a strike for unprofessionalism.”

  “Okay, Kim Yongsun. Nice name by the way. Also appreciate the little smiley face there. Very cute.” Byul smirks at her. “Not flirting by the way.”

  “No?” She pouts, flipping open her journal again. “Too bad.”

  Byul gapes at her with a furrow in her brow. “I’m receiving mixed signals.”

  “This might be the moment you should quit while you’re ahead.” Yongsun hides her smile by lowering her face into her journal and picking up her pencil. She couldn’t write a single lyric right now even if she tried.

  “Yep. Right.” Yong watches Byul’s tennis shoes retreat from her peripheral vision. “I will one hundred percent call you later.”

  “Text me your name so I’ll answer.”

  Her voice begins to fade as she backs away. “She doesn’t answer calls from unknown numbers I think I’ve found the o-”

  Yongsun glances up from the journal to find Byul confidently walking backwards still watching her from about ten yards away. Seeing Yongsun’s attention, she shoots more finger guns at her.

  _Turn around!_ Yongsun mouths, motioning a finger in a circle.

  Byul spins around in a complete circle and gives her a thumbs up. She snorts. Okay then.

  Yongsun stares at her barely written song a moment longer before flipping to a new page. _Joining a band could be fun distraction_ , she thinks, _but there’s no way we’d ever win that competition_. She scans the green for Byul, but the woman has vanished from view.

  _She better text me_. Yongsun moves to pull her phone out of her pocket, then stops. _And I will give her a reasonable amount of time to do so_.

  She glances down at the empty page of her journal which lies on her lap as a physical metaphor for her mind. She jots it down so maybe she can use it later.

_My thoughts are empty journal pages_

_That lie open for no one to read._

 

  Satisfied enough with her work today, Yongsun shuts her journal and stands up, slinging her guitar over her shoulder to rest comfortably against her shoulder blades and returning her pick into her front pocket. Pulling out her phone to order her Friday night stir-fry delivery, she sees three texts from an unknown number on her lock screen.

  She can feel her heart beating in her ears as she opens the messages.

 

**4:47pm**

_you know, I really was gonna wait at least an hour until I texted you_

_then I saw you reaching for your phone (not stalking btw) and decided I shouldn’t keep you waiting ;)_

**4:50pm**

_also this is moon byul_

 

  Yongsun smiles to herself, saving the number under _Byul (band)_ before typing out a quick message as she goes back to her dorm.

 

**5:04pm**

_Yep I somehow figured it was you._

_And I wasn’t looking for your text. I was going to check the time._

**5:04pm**

_sure_

_checking what time I’d text you ;)_

 

She rolls her eyes at both the quick reply and this woman’s affinity for winky faces. Before she can slip the phone back into her pocket, it vibrates again.

 

**5:05pm**

_my bassist tells me to invite you to dinner with us tomorrow_

_(not flirting btw)_

_(she might be tho)_

 

Yongsun huffs and pauses in the middle of the sidewalk as she mulls over the text. Byul must be very forthcoming for her to invite Yongsun to a dinner already, though it’s not as if she herself has plans. Her only friends are acquaintances from her business classes and they hardly ever hang out outside of classes.

 

**5:07pm**

_Would I sound desperate if I agreed?_

**5:08pm**

_ha_

_I think I already sound desperate enough for the both of us_

 

That’s true. And Byul is still messaging her anyway.

 

**5:08pm**

_Text me the details._

_I’ll be there._


	2. Chapter 2

Wheein dips her paintbrush into her tin can filled with murky water that’s been tainted with too many colors. It’s time for some fresh water, but the canvas begs for her undivided attention lest she lose her inspiration. It’d been begging for the past three hours, but she’s determined to at least finish the lips before heading back to the dorm.

The perfect shade of pink, personally created from her red and white paints, is beginning to run out and she can’t risk wasting it. She isn’t certain that she can create the exact shade again.

Wheein wipes her eyebrow using the back of her hand, smearing into it the mud-brown shade she’d used for freckles earlier. She sighs through her nose. Cleaning dried paint out of her hair is the worse part of her evenings. It was one of the reasons she cut it so short.

Bobbing her head to the rhythm of her music, she resumes on the swell of her creation’s bottom lip, darkening its edges. Working in the art studio on Friday nights is her own special way of relaxing while others party or relax in their dorms. The studio is always empty during this time because most of her fellow art students have lives being hipsters who talk about their imported coffee beans from the jungles of Madagascar or the twenty second showers they take using their soybean soap bars because they ‘love the environment man’. And then they waltz into the art studio in the afternoons with their plastic  _Starbucks_  cups smelling like…well, soymilk and sweat so maybe the twenty second showers aren’t a facade.

It didn’t matter. Her fellow students can live however they want, especially if it leaves the studio free for her to loudly blast her funky jams.

_She said, “I ain’t even make my bed up”_.Wheein jerks her shoulders to the choppy rhythm as she mouths along.  _“Watch your step, you gon’ wake my mama and dad up”_.

The art studio is small glass building that lies almost isolated from the rest of the campus to help students become inspired by nature without too many pedestrian distractions nearby. So, without music blasting or art students around, Wheein finds the atmosphere too quiet and a little creepy.

Through her music, a sharp beep cuts through the steady drone and she stills with her brush posed over her subject’s lips. That sound is eerily close to someone using their ID to get inside down the hall but, Wheein looks over at the wall clock, it’s almost nine-thirty. It’s possible someone’s here for some late-night work but unlikely.

_That’s enough painting for tonight._ With her heart threatening to beat out of her chest, she shuts off her music and lets her brush sink into her can. Turning around to go wash her hands, she swallows a scream at the woman suddenly in the studio’s doorway.

The woman lifts a hand. “Hi.”

Wheein stands frozen in front of her canvas, small eyes somehow growing to the size of saucers. “Uh. How’d you get in here?”

Only the ID cards of art students should work on the studio door this late at night and out of her thirty-three other classmates she’s never seen this woman.

“Oh right. This guy, uh-” she frowns at the card in her hand, “Jenkin Rotche- Roken-” she coughs. “Jenkin let me borrow his card.”

“Borrow?” Wheein takes in the woman’s hair that flows to her mid-black like an ink stain and the peculiar sharpness of her ears, like an elf’s ears, just in case she needs to file a police report later. “You didn’t take it?”

The woman gives her an easy smile that is nothing if not completely unconvincing. “What? You’ve never borrowed anything before?”

“I have a feeling our definitions of ‘borrow’ are very different right now.”

She cocks her head, looking over Wheein’s shoulder with interest. “Is that yours?”

Wheein glances back at her portrait, not fooled but ready for a change in subject anyway. “Yeah. Uh, what did you need in here?”

“You, Wheein.”

Wheein grows nervous again with that statement and the fact that she knows her name. She looks between the woman and the exit she’s blocking. The stranger looks more mischievous than dangerous, but one couldn’t be too careful when this far from others.

“Why me?”

The woman gracefully strides further into the room and her gaze sweeps the room with a predatory intent, glimpsing over the canvases, pottery, and mosaics lying about. There’s something intimidating – almost dangerous – about the curvy female, Wheein realizes as she watches her movements nearly mesmerized, and also something that lures her closer. It’s like a moth to a bare bulb or a trout to a hook. Wheein’s fear has slipped away to allow fascination to take form. Her hands itch to draw her.

“Who are you?” Wheein asks once the woman’s been silent for a while as she examines some landscape painting on the far wall.

“Hyejin.” Her voice a careless whisper thrown over her shoulder.

Wheein waits for her to say more, but Hyejin just crosses over to a gleaming orange vase on another counter. Her eyes narrow as she glares at her back in frustration.

“You stole a guy’s student ID, came here to talk to me, and suddenly you’ve gone silent?”

“Go on. Keep doing what you were doing before I got here.”

“What? I – I can’t with you creeping all over the place.”

Hyejin gives Wheein a smirk over her shoulder. She immediately stops breathing. “Am I making you nervous, Jung Wheein?”

“N-no.” She stutters out before folding her arms defensively. “You’ve just piqued my curiosity.”

Hyejin laughs, the sound lighter and cuter than Wheein would have imagined it to be. “I’m just yanking your chain.” She navigates her way around some tables with the graceful fluidity of an artist’s brush. She looks her over. “I know dried paint is a motherfucker, so I’ll try to make this quick. I heard you’re a good drummer.”

Wheein grows pale and her lips tighten enough to form a crater in her cheek. “I don’t know what you –”

“Yeah, yeah.” She punctuates each word with a dismissive hand swat. “I know you’re still scarred from The Flying Drumstick of ‘17 fiasco but it’s time, friend.”

Wheein cringes at the thought of last year when her drumstick, the very thing she believed to be an extension of herself and trusted with her life, slipped from her fingers and soared through the air. It jabbed a man who sat in the front row of the concert hall like a spear and gave him a black eye. She had sat there during it all in frozen silence. Impossible as it may be, she could hear the drumstick falling and clattering unto the wooden floor. And it was all because she forgot her finger tape in her dorm.

“I don’t play the drums anymore.” Wheein tells her with finality.

“What if I asked you to join a band that I’m in?”

“I don’t see how that changes a thing I said.” Wheein begins to lose interest and unties the back of her apron. “I used to know a few drummers and I can reference them to you.”

Hyejin gaze is penetrating. “But I want you.”

Wheein’s snorts even as her heart skips a beat. She slips off her apron to disguise it. “Flirt all you want. I’m not interested.”

“Flirting? I was just being honest.” She laughs, coming a little closer. “But I can show you flirting.”  

“Nope!” Wheein nearly tips over her canvas as she backs up into it. “I’ve gotta – clean up.”

“And I’ll help.” She watches as Hyejin picks up her tin can full of brushes. “Just wash them out in the sink, right?”

Wheein nods cautiously and Hyejin takes it over to the sink area. She shrugs the apron over her head. “I’m also busy with art class.”

That was a bit of a lie. She’s spent so much of her time in the studio that she’s a good two months ahead in her Portrait Forms class and is practically finished with Advanced Pottery. She figures nothing’s a better use of time than creating art, so it’s become the sole activity of her free time.

“Look, you’re an art major right?” Hyejin drops the tin can in the sink with a clatter and turns on the water. “I’m a theater major so we’re kinda in the same boat with the likelihood of jobs after college here.” She looks over her shoulder at Wheein. “But I don’t know, your art looks pretty damn good so who am I to say you won’t get a job easy?”

Wheein lifts the easel with her canvas on it carefully to the other side of the studio. “What’s your point?”

“I’m saying that I don’t know how good our band might be. If we’re sucky, you’ll still have a ton of fun. But if we’re good,” she pauses long enough that Wheein turns to look at her, “we could be rich.”

Wheein huffs. “Yeah, you’re right. That is rich.”

“You pun but think about it. All you are giving us is your time.” She twists off the faucet. “You know that weirdo who strums her guitar and sings in the middle of campus all afternoon?”

“Yongsun?”

Wheein had never spoken to the woman but the hip art students would sometimes rave about her and dare one another to ask her out. Yongsun always smiled if she made eye contact with her as she passed going to the studio and she would throw up a small hand and wave. Every time they had a small interaction Wheein felt giddy and proud like her crush spoke to her. She didn’t have a crush. Yongsun’s songs are just really good and she’s just really attractive.

Hyejin nods, “Sure. Yongsun I guess. She’s in the band.”

Her breath hitches. “Are you for real?”

“Do I look like a liar?” Hyejin gives another one of her guilty smiles. “The three of us are having a little get-to-know-you dinner tomorrow evening and I’m extending you the invitation. No pressure to join, just test out the group dynamics.”

Wheein hesitates. The offer just got really interesting all of a sudden and it isn’t as if she’s signing a blood contract.

“Just testing the waters?” Wheein asks.

“Just a little dip.”

“I – I don’t know. Maybe.” She sighs. “I haven’t played a real drum set in over a year and-”

“Just bring your pretty little self.” Wheein flushes. “You can put your number in my phone so I can text you and put you in the group chat.”

Wheein accepts the phone Hyejin offers.

“You should receive a couple of songs soon to familiarize yourself with before tomorrow night.”

She glances up at her. “Why?”

“After the meet-and-greet, we’ll be seeing how well we perform together.” Hyejin shrugs when Wheein develops a crease in her brow. “It’s really no pressure at all. Friendly jam sess.”

Her palms begin to sweat at the thought and then the feeling of sweaty palms triggers her anxiety for the drumstick memory from a year ago. She feels Hyejin studying her as her thumbs shake over the phone.

Wheein gulps. “On second thought-”

“Just try it.” Hyejin reaches over and places a light hand on her shoulder. “I promise I will only cry a little if you decide this isn’t for you.”

She sighs through her nose. “In your room at night, right? Not in front of me?”

“Of course.” Hyejin removes her hand. “Cross my heart.”

And though internally Wheein feels extremely close to an anxiety attack, she puts her number into Hyejin’s phone and gives it back to her feeling as if she’s somehow sealed her fate.


End file.
